Over the last few years, there has been a rapid growth in the use of optical fiber cables. One such type of optical fiber cables are air blown optical fiber cables. These air blown optical fiber cables are used for various indoor-outdoor applications. The air blown optical fiber cables are installed inducts/microduct. Traditionally, the air blown optical fiber cables are installed by blowing the optical fiber cable into a duct/microduct while simultaneously pushing the optical cable into the duct in starting length of cable to support the initial blowing of the optical fiber cable. The blowing is done by injecting a high volume of compressed air into the duct which flows inside the duct at high speed. Accordingly, the high speed air propels the optical fiber cable further inside the duct. The optical fiber cable is blown with a cable blowing machine. Typically, the structure of these air blown optical fiber cables includes a number of buffer tubes. The buffer tubes are stranded around a central strength member in an S-Z fashion. In addition, the buffer tubes are enclosed by a sheathing layer for providing protection to the air blown optical fiber cable. Typically, the buffer tubes are formed using polybutylene terephthalate, PA-12 or polypropylene. Further, the buffer tubes are single layer buffer tubes.
The currently available air blown optical fiber cables have certain drawbacks. The existing air blown optical fiber cables limits blowing distance and speed for installation in smaller ducts due to the large diameter. In addition, the single layer design of the buffer tubes leads to a higher thickness of the buffer tubes. The higher thickness of the buffer tubes results in a large diameter of the buffer tubes. Accordingly, the large diameter of the buffer tubes leads to large diameter of the air blown optical fiber cables. Further, the conventionally available air blown optical fiber cables with large optical fiber diameter with single layer buffer tubes is large diameter optical fiber cable. This affects the blowing performance of the air blown optical fiber cables into a duct of predefined size. These air blown optical fiber cables with large diameter are difficult to blow for large distances in the predefined duct size. Therefore, the conventionally available optical fiber cables of this kind are blown into duct of higher size. Furthermore, the existing optical fiber cables use optical fiber having a diameter of about 200 microns to reduce the overall diameter of the optical fiber cable to serve the purpose of duct size.
In light of the foregoing discussion, there exists a need for an optical fiber cable which overcomes the above cited drawbacks of conventionally known optical fiber cables.